Sarah Cunningham

Music Video Analysis

“Fire” – Kasabian

The second music video I have chosen to analyse is “Fire” by Kasabian, released on October 3 rd 2009. The song is of the indie rock genre and is mainly a narrative style combined with some performance. This video tells the story of four men, the members of Kasabian, attempting robbing a bank, but failing, in what appears to be set as a wild-western like town. To analyse the video, I used Lacey’s Repertoire of Elements; Character, Narrative, Iconography, Setting and Technical and Audio Codes.

The music video appears to be set in a quiet town, a couple decades back, as everything appears older and not so modern as today for example; the old appearance of the bank, and the use of a Volkswagen camper van. The town seems similar to a desert – with the warm, yellow-tinted/washed out colours running throughout the video and the desertedness of the town. One of the characters is also shown wearing a hat similar to that of a cowboy – this suggest that the direct has purposefully tried to convey a wild western theme/setting.

A clip within the video shows the character in the hat walking towards the camera, enabling the viewer to get a deeper sense of the setting – iconography is used here within the mise en scene when showing the desert in the background and gradient sky, as well as the characters costume, giving the sense of a wild western shoot out.

The main characters of the video consist of four men, the members of the band Kasabian, all dressed in different styles: most which portray the old western style in some way. The first character to make an appearance is shown to be wearing a denim jacket with denim jeans, boots and a red neckerchief. He also has long, untamed hair. This use of denim and a red neckerchief makes the view relate the character to a stereotypical cowboy as they appear wearing similar clothing. This character is also shown with a toothpick in his mouth – iconic of a cowboy as they as sometimes portrayed chewing on a toothpick in old western films.

The other characters within the video are shown of similar style; one is shown wearing denim jeans and a plaid top which can be conveyed as quite old fashioned, however, this character is also wearing a baseball cap which reminds the audience that it is modern day. Another character is shown in a long trench coat and cowboy hat – this character is portrayed mysteriously yet still related to the old western style of the video.

The narrative of the video is mainly narrative as the band members show the story of robbing a bank to steal the bag of music note, and being unsuccessful. This narrative style is filmed chronologically as each event happens in the order it is supposed to - however, a clip within the first 30 seconds of the music video shows the bag of music notes which the band members are aiming to steal, which also features on later in the video. This could have been done by the director to foreshadow the upcoming events.

The video also shows clips of one band member singing/miming along to the lyrics, as well as guitars featuring in various clips making the style a combination of both narrative and performance.

The video conveys a sense of a past era, as the video quality appears as it would have a couple decades back in comparison to the first video I analysed which was published only a few months before Kasabians “Fire”. The difference in quality suggests it was done purposefully to make it seem like it was made a few decades ago.

CCTV footage is used within the video to give an authentic feel to the robbery, showing the characters through their attempt to rob the bank. This also allows the director to get many different angles of the characters during the robbing scene and shows the audience what was happening in each section. The CCTV footage also shows the audience the time of the event happening, keeping with the chronological narrative style. An over the shoulder shot is used at the beginning of the video, showing one of the characters reflection in the window of the bank miming along to the lyrics of the song – this signifies the performance style of the video.

Also within the video, the characters, the band as well as the police, are shown using their guitars as fire arms – this could be a parody of a past music video by Judas Priest, in which they also use guitars as a form of firearm. The incorporation of the guitars also adds to the performance genre, as it highlights the fact that they make music and reminds the audience of this.

The video conveys a sense of a past era, as the video quality appears as it would have a couple decades back in comparison to the first video I analysed which was published only a few months before Kasabians “Fire”. The difference in quality suggests it was done purposefully to make it seem like it was made before camera quality became clearer and sharper.

The video is very similar to Judas Priests “Breaking the Law” video which was created in 1980 showing an example of intertextuality. The video shows a band breaking into a bank and using their guitars as a form of firearm as in Kasabian’s “Fire”. This is also an example of pastiche, which suggests that Kasabian used the ideas from Judas Priest’s video and incorporated it into their own. This may also be the reason behind the video lacking in quality to make it look more genuine and to make it appear more similar to Priests’ video.